This....wasn't the book for me. I heard nothing but praise for it from various sites that I follow, and while there was a warning that it was gory, the gore seemed quite simply for shock value and that's about all. We start off with a day in the life between Vera and her girlfriend (though sometimes she's referred to fiancee and sometimes girlfriend) and the hint that Vera is about to reveal something "big". It turns out that the reveal is that as a professor, Vera has written an about-to-be-published book on statistics or something, but she's also going to be coming out to her mother. This day happens to also be the day all hell breaks loose with a "low probability event" that wipes out about 8 million people across the globe in unlikely and extremely violent/gory ways. From there we time jump four years in the future and Vera has become a depressed nihilist, who no longer leaves the house or really moves off of her couch., And herein lies the problem for me--Vera is incredibly uninteresting. Her constant droning of not caring about life, not caring about herself or her loved ones, and not caring what happens to her has the effect of simply making me not care about her. I started flipping through pages out of boredom. None of this really spoke to me, and the big reveal of the cause of this mass event was just, well, dumb. People may love this book and Chuck Tingle, but I just don't see the cause for praise here, so obviously this isn't for me. This was a unique setup, but a boring letdown in every other way.

This is my first by this author, and while it definitely won't be my last, I might skip a few from his back catalogue.

I don't think I'm the target audience for Bigfood Pirates Haunt My Balls.

This book, though?

This book was my sweet spot.

Traumatic and tender and nauseating and nuanced and ridiculous and redemptive.

I might skip Space Raptor Butt Invasion, but I’m all in for anything similar to this one.

You can always count on Chuck Tingle to deliver a story full of unimaginable horror. This time there is a global catastrophe that changes everything, especially for Vera. She finds herself avoiding everything until agent Layne shows up asking for her help. Can she help avoid another event? This was a WILD ride, so many crazy over the top images that I will not forget any time soon!! Loved Vera, what a great character. This is a must for Tingle fans. One of his best to date.

4 ⭐️

I cannot even begin to tell you how deeply this phenomenal book affected me. I’d heard of Chuck Tingle before, of course, but never had a chance to read any of his work, which has managed to be both wildly popular and critically acclaimed. You can definitely add me to the ranks of his adoring fans now though! How could I not be a fan of someone who, to quote the About the Author at the back of this volume, so spectacularly achieves his stated intention “to prove love is real”, even while writing in non-romance genres?

Lucky Day definitely isn’t a romance novel, though our protagonist Vera Norrie starts out the narrative solidly in love. She’s the youngest professor of statistics and probability in the University of Chicago’s history, and is about to publish a book exposing the corporate malfeasance of Everett Vacation and Entertainment, a gambling company. More importantly, she’s about to come out to her mother Maria, and reveal that her roommate Annie is actually her fiancee.

Unfortunately, that conversation does not go well. Maria’s response after Vera comes out to her as bisexual is less than optimal:

QUOTE
“Vera, bisexuals don’t exist,” she counters, her voice tinged with laughter.

I’ve somehow managed to remain calm this entire time, but there’s something about my mother’s choice of words that immediately sends my already wobbly house of cards crashing down. Maria has said things to me containing exponentially more vitriol than this throwaway line, but maybe that’s what makes her statement so brutal. She really, truly means it.

What I’ve built with Annie is deeply important, but it will never be enough to satisfy people like my mother. A furious and belligerent rejection might’ve felt better in this moment, because at least I’d know she was taking me seriously.
END QUOTE

Things go from bad to worse when all hell breaks loose, as a catastrophic series of highly unlikely and deeply unfortunate events results in the deaths of millions worldwide. While Vera survives the carnage, several of her loved ones do not, sending her into a deep spiral of mourning that upends her life completely.

Four years later, she’s moved to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and exists in a hermit-like state, refusing to care about anything but the basic necessities of living. That all changes the day Agent Jonah Layne of the Low-Probability Event Commission waltzes into her home. LPEC is a government agency formed in the aftermath of the tragic and still bewildering day for which it was named. With little federal oversight, LPEC’s agents tend to play fast and loose with the rules. Now Agent Layne wants to recruit Vera to his mission, despite the deep misery and pessimism she very readily heaps on him in the form of lectures on the futility of life. Agent Layne, however, has a different outlook:

QUOTE
Agent Layne stares at me for a long, long beat. “Are you always like this?” he finally asks.

“Like what?”

“Weird is the word I’d use.”

“I got significantly weirder after a monkey dressed as Hamlet beat my friend’s skull in with a typewriter.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” Agent Layne says. “I’m not here to be a dick. It’s my job to help people.”

I erupt with a fatalist scoff. “Good luck with that. We’re all fucked.”

Agent Layne frowns slightly, nodding along but clearly disagreeing. There’s a sickening air of hope that seems to permeate the man’s skin and hang above him like a fluffy white cloud.
END QUOTE

And perhaps he has good reason to hope. After years of investigation, he finally has EVE in his sights, and thinks he might be able to link them irrevocably to the Low-Probability Event. Vera just might be the key to obtaining that proof and making sure the charges stick.

If there’s anything that can rouse Vera from her depressive state, it’s the thought that she might finally be able to make EVE pay for everything it’s done. But as she joins forces with Agent Layne to uncover the truth, she encounters painful reminders of whom she used to be and what she’s been hiding from these last four years. Will she be able to accept the fact that there’s only so much order and meaning she can impose on reality, or will she break herself – and potentially far greater things in the grand scheme of life – in the process?

Aside from being a wild and often hilarious novel of intrigue and horror, this was a terrific existential argument for love and empathy and the kind of chaotic goodness that I wholeheartedly espouse in my everyday living. Vera is conflicted and beset on so many levels, yet manages time and time again to push past fear and rigidity to do the right thing. She’s an extraordinary heroine in an extraordinarily thoughtful book about what it means to be human and to love, even in the aftermath of crushing grief. I can’t recommend Lucky Day highly enough, and can’t wait to go through Mr Tingle’s back catalog to read more of his life-affirming novels.

I've been reading Chuck Tingle for years now and this was another wild and fantastic read. I don't feel comfortable really commenting on the LGBTQ+ themes since I'm not a part of that community, but the writing was great, loved the horror and the LPE happening on my birthday was an added bonus. 5 stars, would read again!

To Vera Norrie, everything is important, each tiny choice cascading into a waterfall of possibilities to reach a singular point. Everything is mired in meaning, order, and calculable certainty. All her meticulously planned choices have culminated into becoming the youngest statistics and probability professor at her institution and a newly published author. The only uncertainty is her mother’s reaction to learning that Vera is bisexual and engaged to a woman. One moment they are fighting and, in the next, the world as Vera knows it is thrown into grotesque chaos and the very concept of reality upended.

In the aftermath of the Low-Probability Event (LPE), Vera abandons everything, including herself, and is drifting in the liminal space between existence and oblivion. As a bisexual, people keep telling her she doesn’t exist, so why should she try? When a brash agent from the LPE Commission (LPEC) waltzes into her home to enlist her help, Vera can’t be bothered—until she learns that Agent Jonah Layne is investigating the connection between the improbable events that hurt and killed millions and the casino whose anomalous luck and fraud are the subject of her book. In fits and starts, Vera begins reconnecting, but in doing so must confront the hard realities she’s been hiding from. As she and Layne uncover the truth, Vera must make the ultimate choice—living within chaos or finally embracing nonexistence.

Lucky Day is an exploration of several philosophical and social -isms—nihilism, existentialism, absurdism, and a bitter blast of bi-erasure wrapped in Final Destination packaging. When the LPE ended Vera and Layne’s old lives, they took disparate paths to new ones. The LPE rescued Layne from self-destruction and gave his life the purpose and assurance it stole from Vera. He zealously embraces a carpe diem lifestyle and is cocky, childish, enigmatic, and irrepressible. The LPEC hides reality from citizens and invades their privacy for the greater good, and Layne wields his government-sanctioned lawlessness with insouciant glee. Before the LPE, Vera believed in the power of connections and found peace in life’s consistent patterns. Her worldview shattered when confronted with the impossible and inexplicable. Now, she’s truculently determined to repudiate any hint of meaning. Her brain is a non-stop smorgasbord of ‘we’ll all be crushed under the careless foot of a cosmic giant, so who cares’ sentiment that is more desperate security blanket than actual conviction.

There isn’t anything subtle in Vera’s journey, but her ‘Eeyore with a PhD’ energy is compelling. As her foil, Layne is just as extra and try-hard as she is, but their push and pull couldn’t completely engage me. There’s also no real development of the “powerful bond” caused by “[growing] together through triumph and tragedy” that’s mentioned at the end. Their dynamic is mostly Vera being fastidiously glum and Layne irritating her with his boyish enthusiasm, constant “I thought you didn’t care” pushback, and edge of patronizing callousness. There is a particularly ugly interaction of

Spoiler title
but is never acknowledged. Unfortunately, that was their deepest moment of personal connection until the end. It mattered thematically for her, but it is distressing, derogatory, and not conducive to friendship. It’s a sad indictment that Vera considers Layne a friend after what feels like a week, because she’s spent years valiantly trying to liquefy into her couch and he’s the Pied Piper of reconnection. There’s no such connection for Layne. Since he likes oddities, maybe he can’t help being a bit fond of an interactive one.
Of course, in a story invested in chaos and unreality within reality, there are naturally a few missing cards, like the aforementioned unearned sentimentality. However, the author does a good job making the whys and wherefores not matter so much. Lucky Day is a delightful marriage of statistical theories, cosmic nothingness, and Rube Goldberg gore. If you’re intrigued by solving an X-Files mystery with a walking, talking void of existential crisis, this one might be for you.

**3.5-stars**

Lucky Day follows MC, Vera, a lover of statistics and her fiance, Annie. Vera sees the world in an interesting way, via numbers and stats. As an academic, she's found a great niche for herself and a peaceful domestic life. On a day they are supposed to be celebrating the publication of her book, and she's prepping to come out to her Mom, a world-wide cataclysmic event occurs. Countless individuals across the globe are killed in truly horrific ways, yet Vera survives. The event comes to be known as the Low Probability Event.

A few years later, though Vera survived, she's certainly not thriving. She's negative, bitter, secluded and hardly-functioning. When a government agent shows up at her home to recruit her to help study the event, she's apathetic about it at best. However, she does agree and sets out with Agent Layne as they investigate the LPE. Their relationship evolves into a sort of buddy cop movie dynamic as they examine the most chaotic events ever penned.

This was a strange one. It was good. Tingle is a great writer, there's no denying that. For my personal taste though, it wasn't quite a hit. It felt like Tingle wrote it as a way to work through an existential crisis. It was compelling in that way, but never succeeded in holding my interest.
I can appreciate the thought and skill that went into the creation of the story, but it continually lost my attention the longer it went on. Certain concepts would capture my attention, but then those would play out and it would be on to the next thing, and my interest would wane again.

I loved the set-up; meeting Vera and quickly getting to the LPEs that started it all. That was wild. It's one of those, 'what the hell am I reading' moments, which is always fun.

I also could understand Vera's reaction to the events. She was easily the most apathetic MC I've ever read from, but considering the circumstances, it made sense, NGL. I try to always stay positive, but I'm not sure where my headspace would be had I been through the series of events she's been through. So, that aspect, the trajectory of her character, was quite believable.

I also enjoyed Agent Layne and the dynamic that develops between the two. I think for me, it was just a little too chaotic and uneven as far as keeping my interest. Overall though, it's solid and creative. The audiobook narration was great, and I know a ton of Readers are going to love this one. Thank you to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review.

Even though this isn't a new favorite for me, I truly appreciate Tingle's creative energy and fluid writing style. I will most definitely be returning for more!!

Included in August Chill Quill at BookTrib: https://booktrib.com/2025/08/12/the-chill-quill-august-brings-the-heat-and-the-horror/

I am the self-proclaimed #1 fan of Chuck Tingle. I have been reading Tinglers since the very beginning and Camp Damascus was my favorite book of 2023, so of course, I was thrilled to receive an ARC of this latest Tingle release, Lucky Day.

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle is a mind-bending, genre-defying masterpiece that proves once again why he’s one of my favorite authors. Only Tingle could take the absurd premise of a world forever scarred by improbable, deadly accidents and transform it into an existential, terrifying, and deeply human story. Through Vera, a former statistics professor still grieving her losses, Tingle explores chaos, luck, and the fragile search for meaning with both biting horror and unexpected tenderness.

What makes this book so striking is how it balances outrageous imagination - chimps with typewriters, exploding manhole covers, improbable Vegas casinos - with razor-sharp commentary on grief, faith, and survival. Like Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays, Tingle wields horror not only for shocks, but as a scalpel to probe the deepest fears of our age. Dark, funny, and wholly original, Lucky Day cements his place as one of the most daring and innovative voices in modern speculative fiction..

Super excited to see Chuck on the book tour and I will be recommending this to everyone! Love is real!

3.5 stars rounded up. I'm a Chuck Tingle fan. I have discovered I am NOT a cosmic horror fan and that is where I got a little lost with this one. I still enjoyed the story because there is something about Chuck Tingle's writing that just really works for me, but I was hoping to love this. The book opens up with such a weird scene but it pays off in the end. I really appreciated all of the discussion around bi erasure.

Having read all three of Chuck's traditionally published horror novels upon completing this one I had decided this was probably my least favorite of the three, but after mulling it over for a few weeks while I can't say it's my favorite (that is still CAMP DAMASCUS) I think I ended up enjoying it more than I initially thought. I think initially I was slightly thrown because it seemed different than Chuck's other horror novels. I had specifically called CAMP DAMASCUS a "feel good horror story" and felt that description also applied to BURY YOUR GAYS, but initially I wasn't sure if LUCKY DAY also fit into that category. The conclusion I've come to is that it is, but it's certainly darker than his other works. Not so much in a blood and gore way (although I guess technically considering the body count here is like 8 million that's not completely wrong), but moreso in an existential way. The main character is grappling with...depression? ennui? She's basically decided that nothing matters in life, so what is the point in trying. And this feeling very much permeates the entire book (or almost the entire book). She's not exactly suicidal, but she's given up to the point where she barely bothers to do much more than just keep herself alive. Despite all of this I think this is a hopeful book, perhaps even his MOST hopeful book, because in the end while perhaps it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the universe what we do, we can still choose to make a difference. So in the end we are once again shown that love is real with a combination of Chuck's fantastic writing, outrageous plot that probably shouldn't work but somehow does, and that unique blend of horror that is at once gore soaked but ultimately hopeful. Ideally in a year or two I would like to come back and revisit this book, to look at it with fresh eyes and hopefully see things that I missed the first time around. Between now and then though, I hope we get more great horror books by Chuck, and I'll be more than happy to talk them up to anyone and everyone I possibly can, because his work is not to be missed.

Chuck Tingle does it again! Every single horror novel he writes has such beautiful prose and an insanely addicting storyline. I particularly enjoyed the growth of Vera in this book. Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for providing the ARC for this book. I highly recommend.

Chuck Tingle is a fascinating author. He brings a fresh perspective to any story that he tackles and you can expect more of that in this latest book, Lucky Day.

I was not the right audience for this particular work, but I would definitely recommend it to people looking for high concept philosophical horror with existential dread mixed in. This is an absurdist work of gory horror perfect for fans of the X Files and other paranormal conspiracy novel fans. It's got a little bit of a heist-ish feel as the story centers around a Vegas casino.

There were parts of the story that got a little too academic for my tastes.

This went from 0-100 so fast! Almost immediately Vera experiences immense loss during a Low Probability Event and shuts off from the world. For years. I don’t want to describe the synopsis too much because it is really fun to read how the first 60 pages play out.

Chuck Tingle has a way of writing characters that I immediately connect to. Despite the length of the book I was instantly connected to the main character. Chuck Tingle has been an auto-buy author for me since reading Camp Damascus and I don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future!

For me the pacing slowed around 75% and I wish it had been full throttle throughout. I was picturing Agent Layne as Gordon Cole (David Lynch in Twin Peaks) idk but I enjoyed picturing it! I really did enjoy this book but I’m not sure how long this will stick with me in the end.

Read this if you like the Final Destination movies.

The only way to win at gambling is to keep gambling

I never knew what to expect from this book and I loved that! The beginning was absolutely bonkers for an opening, then we sit with our MC's grief, then get this kind of silly buddy cop situation but also get really dark? I had such a great time with the experience that this book is and would recommend it to anyone that likes to have fun with their horror and Final Destination style kills.

2.5/5: Unfortunately, this one was a miss for me. Usually I really love the chaos of Tingle’s books but this plot was confusing and the statistical low probability events went over my head. It was hard to grasp the cause and correlation of these events + the purpose of the plot. Not every book can be a hit and that’s okay. I’ll be around for the next release :)

In another fantastical read by none other than Chuck Tingle, comes his newest novel Lucky Day. A probability and statistics upstart Vera is excited (and terrified) to celebrate her engagement and new publication with her friends and family. As her celebration begins to spiral, so does the entire world. The Low-Probability Event, which killed 8 million people, continues to haunt her four years later. All of these events that were improbable to happen caused so many of those around Vera to die. Everything that she knew was certain, was made chaotic and unreliable by that event. Now, she struggles through life trying to ignore the chaos that this event has caused. That is until Agent Layne shows up with a proposal to figure out exactly what happened on that day. As Vera navigates the world of the improbable, she also begins to unravel the chaos that has been within herself.
This book takes you from zero to one hundred within the first few chapters. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what the next event could be. While I do personally feel like the ending felt a bit rushed and a tiny bit anticlimactic, it did not damper my enjoyment of the book as a whole. Vera's love of statistics, numbers, and order was extremely relatable, and having a small statistics theory lesson in the middle of the book was a fun surprise! This book is a definite must read for those who enjoy Chuck Tingle's other works as well as those who enjoy sleuthing, puzzle solving, and sometimes the absurd.

It’s Memorable. You will never, ever read another book where the apocalypse is caused by chimpanzees with typewriters. I’ll give Tingle that. It’s a spectacle. You read it with the same morbid curiosity you’d have watching a car crash in slow motion. Big Ideas. It’s trying so hard to be deep. It’s grappling with nihilism, the illusion of meaning, and whether love can exist in a universe that clearly hates us. You have to respect the ambition, even if the execution is… a lot. To read it is kind of a mess, one minute you're dealing with existentialism and then it's a complete 180 and it's absurdism. I felt like I was being pulled by both arms. My ADHD was struggling to keep up with what was going on, that was something I've never once experienced before. I felt both confused and compelled all at once. Never once bored. So, what to do with this one... I don't rightly know Chuck. I'm going to give it 5 stars, because art makes you think. And buckaroo, I'm still thinking.

Chuck Tingle books are always an adventure, and this one definitely is! Vera is a bisexual statistics professor with a fiancé that her mother thinks is just a phase. She survives a horrific global catastrophe, and then kind of gives up. The events of that day were absolutely absurd, so the book starts out with a bang. If you like horror, sci-fi, and a little bit of the absurd, you will love this book. You will also love Chuck Tingle in general.

This was my first ever read from Chuck Tingle and wow what a doozy! This was a brilliant blend of weird horror, reflections on existence, & how we handle trauma. Vera, our main character & a professor or statistics, is one of many survivors of the Low Probability Event which changed everything. In one day she loses loved ones, abandons her life, no longer has the comforts of routine & statistics, and feels as though life has lost all meaning. Four years after everything changes she meets Agent Layne, a man on a mission to bring down the casino that may be responsible for the catastrophe.
While yes, this is a gory story of how people can be killed in all kinds on improbable ways, this is also the story of how you try to find meaning in life again despite the tragedies. When even her own mother denied Vera's existence as herself, how does she face existence in a world full of unknowns? This is Vera's story of picking up pieces & deciding what's worth it in the end. Her budding friendship with Agent Layne was really interesting. I won't go too deeply into it to avoid spoilers but it's a friendship that is touching despite all the ups and major downs. After everything, it ends more hopeful than I could have imagined. Just a really unique reading experience.